Price increases for pet licenses and permits approved by Washoe County commissioners

RENO, Nev. (News 4 & Fox 11) — The cost to own a pet in Washoe County just went up.

Washoe County commissioners recently approved a fee schedule to update costs related to licenses and permits, field enforcement, shelter operations, vaccinations and veterinary services. The new prices start January 1, 2025.

The county said the prices hadn't been increased since 2005. In that 20 years, a lot has changed. The community has grown and the needs have changed and prices for everything has gone up.

"We hired a veterinarian this year. We hired medical staff. And so those those staff members come at a cost and we need to be able to sustain those," said Shyanne Schull, director of Washoe County Regional Animal Services. "In that 20 year time span, there's been a number of services that cost us more to deliver to our community. Our staff are being paid more. It costs more for veterinary care. It costs more for pet food. All of the things that we provide to animals that come to us and to our community are costing us more."

Washoe County requires dogs and cats have licenses. Starting January 1, a one year license for an unaltered animal will go from $20 to $30. A one year license for a spayed or neutered animal will increase from $8 to $16.

"What we're aiming to do with that difference is to put money back into us being in our fund to help provide spay neuter services for our community," Schull said.

If a dog or cat gets picked up running on the street, impound fees will go from $34 to $60 for dogs and $28 to $60 for cats. There will be a daily boarding fee for each too.

The big price jumps include dangerous dog permits going from $50 to $500. Having more than the legal limit of five dogs or seven cats variance permit is going up from $50 to $400. Those two examples are time-consuming and complex cases for staff.

"That permit alone requires approximately eight hours of staff time. So from the time of application to the time of inspection to all the neighborhood notifications to the approvals or the denials, that's an that's a very taxing process to our staff," Schull said.

Some of those higher costs will be phased in from 2025 and 2026.

The county used MGT Consulting which did studies to determine how much it costs WCRAS provides and suggest a price strategy to help fill the financial gaps.

The money collected will help Regional Animal Services recoup some of their lost costs.

"All of the services that we were charging fees for, given what we actually collected versus what went to collections and went unpaid, we were only recovering 42% of the fees that we were actually delivering the services to our community with. So our goal is to increase that percentage of return and hopefully recover and recuperate more" Schull said.

Now the county said more money will go to help the pets and pet programs throughout the community.

See the old fees compared to the new fees, as well as the ones recommended by MGT Consulting here: